Just decided to add my last minute entry into the competition. I'm working back to front, and here's my first WIP with the background more or less in place. I take it that's the easy bit out of the way, now I'm going to spend time working on the clouds.

It's been a great learning, with a lot of firsts - most crucially it's my first matte painting competition, first matte painting that's almost all clouds and also my first series of posts on mattepainting.org !

Some final thoughts on the matte painting :
- After following the initial set out guidelines exactly, I thought the shot might look better with the sun lower and the lighting corresponding to that. I felt this would draw the viewer in better.
- Also I really wish I had started earlier. Another day's worth, or at least a good few hours of consistent work more, would have really let me complete this shot to a much higher standard for the competition. Having said that though, I'm going to do it for myself tomorrow anyway! :-)

Oh, and just to be clear - the blacked out bits in the WIP images were not mattes! I just blacked it out quickly before I uploaded them, because I hadn't worked on those areas at the time.